What will you make of hearing about a repentant Boko Haram group or an insurgent group that uncharacteristically put up a friendly mien with its victims while plunging their loved ones into sorrow? That should, no doubt, make the ears of the ‘unbelieving’ tingle, I perceive. But before I proceed further, let me take some time out to rejoice with the parents who have had to stare into blank air as they anxiously anticipate being re-united with their wards, and the children who were entangled in a rather meaningless and ‘unending’ powerplay. And may God grant the loved ones of the five (5) girls [who died among those who were captured] the fortitude to bear the loss.
Now to the objective of this piece; curtailing the onslaught of an insurgent group [like Boko Haram] may be an arduous task but the manner in which the presidency handled and/or addressed the latest kidnapping [of the Dapchi Girls] subtly showed that there is an undertone of politics attached to the event- or shall one place the comparison being drawn [with the past administration in view] over and again? This seems to be one of the reasons why speculations are rife that the events leading to the capture of the students from Government Girls Secondary School in Dapchi, Yobe state was staged and scripted by some persons in the position of power. The president kept highlighting the failures of the past administration when in essence the government should have worked around the clock [with security units] to prevent the re-occurrence of an event in the magnitude of the kidnapping of over 200 Chibok girls. This makes me ask: could this really be an avenue to score some cheap political points with the elections approaching?
Furthermore, has the release of the Dapchi girls really taken place without any form of negotiations- by way of ransom paying- or offensive from security agencies? If none of these had been, why then is the government [and ruling party] claiming victory and making it look like it has got everything under control? Moreover, a report has it that the insurgent group decided to return the girls after finding out that 99% of them were Muslims.
Looking into the matter more scrutinizingly; in this ‘victory’, is a manifestation of the government’s failings in dealing with Boko Haram decidedly. How is it that the group returned the girls without any arrest being made? For the singular fact that Dapchi was just recently under siege, it ought to have been under surveillance- here is another loophole in our security setup- and this would have made it possible for security operatives to track the perpetrators.
One may not be able to get the whole truth at this very point in time but yet it is hard to rule out the fact that there is something shady about the scenarios that have been reeled out thus far, and with a good number of Nigerians being unconvinced by the government’s efforts in fighting insurgence, it will not be out of context to ask if the latest happening is not a way of toying with the intelligibility of Nigerians.